[Faculty] UCAD Plus Joint Task Force Update

Tue Dec 16 10:29:16 PST 2025

*This letter is sent on behalf of UC System Provost and Executive Vice
President Katherine S. Newman; Academic Council Chair Ahmet Palazoglu; and
Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Stern. For your convenience, the text
of letter is pasted below with the PDF attached.*

*Subject:* UCAD Plus Joint Task Force Update

Dear UC Community,

As promised, we are pleased to share the first of our monthly updates about
the early work of the Academic Senate-Administration Joint Task Force on UC
Adaptation to Disruptions (UCAD Plus)
<https://senate.universityofcalifornia.edu/committees/ucad-plus.html>.

This important joint effort, which launched in October, marks a significant
milestone in the University’s work to ensure the strength and resilience of
our academic enterprise during a moment of profound uncertainty for UC and
universities across the country. As the task force continues its work
throughout 2026, we are grateful for the opportunity to engage with the UC
community around the ideas and approaches emerging from the task force.

*UCAD Plus Workgroups*

As we shared in an October 2025 letter to the faculty community
<https://senate.universityofcalifornia.edu/_files/committees/council/ucad-plus-joint-task-force-letter-to-uc-faculty-10-2025.pdf>
announcing
the task force, workgroups have now been established to explore five
distinct focus areas in the coming months, building on recommendations from
the Senate’s UCAD Interim Report
<https://senate.universityofcalifornia.edu/_files/reports/council-president-provost-senate-divisions-ucad-interim-report.pdf>.
Each workgroup is co-chaired by a faculty leader and senior administrator
who have broad experience representing faculty and campuses and includes
representation across multiple locations. As of November, each group is
meeting regularly and conducting analyses with the support of UCOP and
Senate staff.  They have all devoted time to reviewing the feedback
received from system-review of the interim report and have considered the
original charge in light of that copious commentary.  These efforts are
rooted in a shared vision for systemwide resilience and innovation that
leverages the “Power of 10” while respecting unique campus needs.

Below is a short synopsis of what these groups have been working on as they
begin their year-long assignments.

   1. *Research activities and infrastructure**: Addressing both broad and
   targeted federal budget cuts, grant interruptions and a reduction in
   indirect costs that have a direct impact on UC’s research mission.*

Work Group 1 (WG-1) has met twice, with a third meeting schedule for the
week of December 15.  Their first two meetings focused on brainstorming
ideas around the charge and the questions that have been posed, and on
discussing the systemwide Senate review of the UCAD interim report.  The
workgroup has now agreed that the focus should be on managing research
operations continuity and support for research personnel in response to a
range of possible disruption scenarios, including (1) broad funding
disruptions affecting one campus only; (2) discipline-based funding
disruptions affecting the entire system; and (3) broad funding disruptions
affecting the entire system.  Some of the questions posed to the workgroup,
such as identifying opportunities for cross-campus collaboration, are seen
as suggesting possible responses to these scenarios, and the workgroup is
considering them among other possible responses.  Among the current next
steps is to study campus research funding portfolios, to better understand
how risk is distributed throughout the system.

   2. *Academic personnel evaluations**: Assessing how changes in the
   research funding landscape will impact UC faculty’s ability to conduct
   their research and to progress in their careers. *

WG-2 had its first meeting on December 3. They have another meeting coming
up before the break and are scheduling other meetings in January. At the
initial meeting, the group discussed the charge of the committee (along
with the comments received on the UCAD interim report).  Workgroup members
decided that both items identified in the charge made sense as topics, and
they fleshed out some of the details of what they thought was inside and
outside the boundaries of their charge. The group also discussed additional
information that should be reviewed. With respect to Achievement Relative
to Opportunity (ARO) principles and practices, the sentiment was that there
is a lot to learn both from campus practices during COVID and other sources
including prior efforts to examine ARO within the system (the ARO workgroup
report, for example).  WG-2 is reaching out to collect this data to inform
future discussions. Also on the ARO front, they want to learn from how the
campuses adapted during COVID and build on these case studies as we think
through principles and implementation recommendations.  They also had
preliminary discussions regarding the second element of the charge
(providing flexibility and glide paths for adaptation to allow faculty to
continue to succeed under sustained disruptions), which they plan to spend
more time on in future meetings.

   3. *Academic program planning, evaluation, and alignment**: Assessing
   financial limitations and seeking ways to ensure program sustainability
   while maintaining academic quality.*

WG-3 has met three times. They have been reviewing the original charge and
working to refine and focus it. In the context of considering how to make
assessments and set priorities in order to preserve and protect those areas
of research and teaching that we most value, they are identifying the
principles that could guide the restructuring of academic units. They want
to identify the conditions that might lead a campus to consider resizing,
restructuring, or reorganizing an academic unit or degree program, and also
ask how the working group members distinguish between responses to
short-term disruptions and a longer-term disruption or change that would
justify a permanent reorganization. Also relevant will be opportunities to
leverage resources with cross-campus collaborations or systemwide support,
while we recognize that it is essential to be sensitive to the needs and
local priorities of the individual campuses. They plan to inform these
discussions with a review of existing policies and procedures, and expect
to identify best practices, useful models of structural and organizational
change, and innovative degree programs that could serve as examples of
successful models.

   4. *Instructional opportunities and course offerings across modalities**:
   Preserving course availability and instructional continuity amid both
   short-term disruptions and longer-term resource pressures.*

WG-4 has met three times and has one more meeting scheduled in December.
The first two meetings were used to develop a framework for providing
recommendations on how campuses should ensure approaches to instruction
that are robust in the context of disruption. They developed a four-part
framework: (1) leveraging a collective department approach that include how
best to share online course materials; (2) Assess impact of disruptions on
the teaching mission and determine what data/information would be most
useful for campuses to consider; (3) Develop flexible instructional models
that are responsive to disruption; and (4) Clarify the role of UC Online in
supporting continuity of instruction in the context of disruptions. They
have divided into four subgroups to draft a response in these areas.
Subgroups working on issues 1 and 3 gave an update in the most recent
meeting and subgroups 2 and 4 will provide an update at the next meeting.
>From there, the material from all of the subgroups will be discussed,
modified, reorganized and merged to identify recommendations and best
practices.

   5. *The future of graduate education**: Assessing the structure,
   delivery, and support systems for graduate education across UC.*

WG-5 has met three times and has 1-2 meetings per week booked through
February and then plan to do one every week or two after that. They have
developed some draft principles to guide the discussion including
commitments to the centrality of doctoral education, academic integrity and
degree quality, equity and inclusion, shared governance and evidence-driven
recommendations.  They have also tried to focus the group’s inquiry so that
they are not trying to cover everything that was in the APC report. The two
current major task are 1) Developing a data collection instrument for the
deans of graduate studies around time-to-degree (TTD) and admissions; and
2) collecting information (also from the deans) about what initiatives they
have already begun in response to the APC report and other
pressures/interests. They plan to also collect data from the divisional
Academic Senates as it seems that the Graduate Councils may operate fairly
differently around things like TTD on each campus. Finally, the group has
been working with institutional research (UCOP and UC Irvine) to determine
if there is any benchmark data available (e.g., from the AAU Data Exchange
or Council of Graduate Schools).

More information about these focus areas can be found in the UCAD Plus
Joint Task Force charge and membership roster
<https://senate.universityofcalifornia.edu/_files/committees/council/ucad-plus-charge-membership-10-2025.pdf>
.

*UC Community Resources*

To foster engagement and support open dialogue, the Systemwide Academic
Senate has established a simple webpage
<https://senate.universityofcalifornia.edu/committees/ucad-plus.html> where
information about the ongoing work of the task force will be posted along
with other important documents and resources related to this effort. We
encourage you to share this site with anyone in the UC community interested
in learning more about this work.

Thank you for taking the time to learn about and engage in this important
systemwide effort. We also want to express our deep gratitude to the
committee and workgroup members who have generously agreed to contribute
their time, expertise, and perspectives to this effort. Together with the
greater UC community, we are confident that we can uphold UC’s excellence
and innovation for generations to come.

We wish you the best for the holiday season and will return with more
updates in the New Year.

Sincerely,

Katherine S. Newman

UC System Provost and

Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs

UC Berkeley Chancellor’s Distinguished Professor of Sociology & Public
Policy

Ahmet Palazoglu

Chair, Academic Council

Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering

UC Davis

Hal Stern

Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor

Distinguished Professor, Department of Statistics

UC Irvine
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